5 Traits Of Coachable People

In a survey of 20,000 new hires, a staggering 46% failed to achieve their expected potential. The main reason (for 26% of new hires) was a lack of coachability, that is, the ability to accept feedback from bosses, colleagues, customers and others. This issue is not just limited to new hires. You might not be promoted because you plough your own furrow, regardless of the opinions of others. You may not be included on an important project because you are not open to constructive criticism. Your direct reports may not give you the feedback you require to become a better manager. Coaching works upwards, sideways and downwards, formally and informally. In the views of many experts, coachability is the most important management skill for top executives the world over. So, what makes a ‘coachable’ person, and how can you become one?

Humility. “True merit, like a river, the deeper it is, the less noise it makes” (Edward Halifax). Open yourself to others and realize that you can’t beat the world on your own, accept that you are not perfect and be open to real change. Humble people are approachable. You would be more likely to offer feedback to a humble person than an over-confident person. Only the truly humble can ask “How am I doing?” and really care about the answer.

Commitment. Proactively seek advice, accept responsibility for your life, and be willing to step outside of your comfort zone. Effective coaching requires that you have the motivation to try new things, form new habits, and be dedicated to the process. People who lack motivation aren’t going to be very inclined to seek out coaching, let alone stick with it

Self-Awareness. If you are reading this article, you probably have a fair amount of awareness about yourself. Use it to reflect on your behaviour and how it impacts other people in the range of situations that come your way. Have the desire and aptitude to increase awareness of your strengths, weaknesses, emotions, patterns and behaviours and how these traits impact your results.

Willingness To Learn. Coaching is all about learning new behaviours, learning to think in new ways, and learning skills that you didn’t previously possess. A willingness to learn, in turn, usually indicates a natural flexibility. You should be ready to take on advice, try new ways of doing things, and be open to modifying the way you interact with people.

Faith. Most people tend to not want to give up control unless they see results first. In a coaching relationship, you only get results if you are willing to surrender this control from the very beginning. Faith in your coach is the key, and no matter how much experience your coach has had, this is often a blind faith to start with. Take the leap. Life is such that it must be lived forward and only understood backwards.

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140722130221-12088091-5-traits-of-coachable-people?trk=tod-home-art-list-large_0

6 Facts about Public Speaking Anxiety

When I was a child I was ultra shy. The middle child in my family, I developed the pattern of letting my older sister do the decision-making and my younger brother handle conversation.

That pattern made me comfortable yet did little to help me break away from the communication barriers I created. What this means is, I had problems entering conversation, getting to know people, making decisions and feeling confident around people. Later in life when encouraged to speak up at meetings or to groups, I suffered physical anxieties like diarhea triggers, focus issues, cold hands, and weak knees.

Researchers tell us that social phobias like public speaking anxiety start in childhood with shyness. If we don’t address them, they progress through adulthood.

Can you relate? Chances are, you can. Lawyers – 58% are introverts – have high propensity to be able to relate. Their communication strengths are usually in the spoken word vs. the oral. Communication and social behaviors are often what holds them back.

Of the general public, less than 50% are introverts. Still, when it comes to phobias, research states that Glossophobia (fear of public speaking) remains #1 of all phobias. Public speaking and social anxiety, often used interchangeably, are experienced in our heads, our bodies and our behavior patterns. We compare ourselves to those who actually have the guts to stand up to address groups. I did for years.

The 16 years I was in public education I attended yearly continuing education seminars and trainings, paying more attention to the presenter than their material. Often my mind wandered to “Gosh, it would be so cool to be able to be that comfortable in front of an audience.” I watched their styles, paid attention to their movement, their gestures, their way of relaxing into who they were with.

Fortunately I learned techniques to do the same. But it still amazes me to hear people’s stories about fearing public speaking and then to read up on facts about public speaking anxiety. Consider the following 6 facts and how they relate to you.

6 Facts about Public Speaking Anxiety
1. Public Speaking remains the #1 phobia.

1. Glossophobia – Public Speaking
2. Necrophobia – Fear of Death
3. Arachnophobia – Fear of Spiders
4. Achluphobia – Fear of Darkness
5. Acrophobia – Fear of Heights

2. Social phobias, regardless of which they are, begin with shyness in childhood. They progress when not addressed.

3. While fear of public speaking has negative effects on careers, it also influences success in life negatively when we do nothing about it.
I can’t say I had the intelligence to do something about it in my case. I was fortunate. Someone I admired taught public speaking as well as theatre/drama. Once I immersed myself into those arts I discovered my shyness didn’t need to hold me back. Yes, the butterflies remain, yet I understand they surface as often with excitement as with anxiety. When I feel them, I tell myself how exciting the moment I’m in is.

4. Three out of four individuals suffer from speech anxiety.
Yep, that’s a whopping 75% of us. That includes extroverts. 

5. Women and men are equally affected with public speaking anxiety.
Does this surprise you?

6. More men than women seek assistance with speaking anxiety.
My hope is the more women professionally develop themselves, this fact will change.

If you can relate to any of these facts, I encourage you to do something about it. Did you take the above test? Take the next step. Find some self-help. Books are the starter for discovering how you can begin thinking about yourself and gain motivation for actually tackling the phobia.Toastmasters is a wonderful way to meet great folks who, like you, are trying to tackle this anxiety. Are you a business builder? Then get more individualized help. Use a coach – especially one you enjoy being around. It will change your life.http://bdbcommunication.com/6-facts-about-public-speaking-anxiety/

How to become a World's Leading Public Speaker

Tips to Getting the Cheapest Airline Flights

After interviewing 10 travel agents in the area, we’ve compiled the very best tips for finding the cheapest flights.

1. Book your flight 21 days before you want to fly: Booking a flight is like playing a game of chicken. Airlines want to get the most money possible for their tickets and have sophisticated computer algorithms that adjust their prices automatically. Book too early, and you might miss out on some major deals. Book too late, and you might be shocked to see prices skyrocket. The general consensus is to book your flight 21 days before your planned departure date to get the best deals.
2. Tuesday is the best day of the week: Most airlines update their reservation systems on a Tuesday at 7pm GMT. People tend to buy the bulk of their tickets on the weekend, so airlines make changes on one of the slowest days of the week – Tuesday.
3. Fly on Tuesday or Wednesday: Tuesday and Wednesday are the least busy days at airports, and are also the cheapest days to fly. As an added bonus, you’ll also have less people to deal with at the airport. Friday and Sunday are the peak flying days of the week, and are the worse, and most expensive days to fly.
4. Book Early for International Flights: The best deals for international flying are found 11-12 weeks in advance. You can also try flying into smaller airports, which sometimes have better deals.
5. Eat Your Cookies: Delete your Internet browser cookies if you’ve visited an airline site within the last 30 days. It’s been discovered that some airlines will raise prices for previous visitors to their websites.
6. Compare Prices: Use travel search engines, in addition to airline websites, to make sure you’re getting the best deal possible.http://www.smarterlifestyles.com/2013/10/01/tips-to-getting-the-cheapest-airline-flights/

Feedback is the Breakfast of Champions: 10 Tips for Doing it Right

Whether from bosses, spouses or friends, it’s not easy to hear about our shortcomings. And letting others know how they can do better is almost as uncomfortable. Feedback can stir up all kinds of self-doubt, defensiveness and career worries – and if handled poorly, it can go radioactive.

But I think about feedback differently. For me, it isn’t about pointing out others’ weaknesses; on the contrary, it’s about helping them eliminate stumbling blocks in order to build on their strengths. That’s why I call feedback “the breakfast of champions.”
And it's essential. Operating without feedback is like driving a car with no speedometer, learning to cook without ever tasting your food, or playing basketball without a scoreboard.
Many organizations don’t train teams in how to give feedback. As a result, many of us have been on the receiving end of vague, unnecessarily negative feedback, with no clear plan for improvement. But, done the right way, feedback can be transformative and redemptive. Here are a few guidelines:

1. Don’t wing it. The words you choose will matter. Practice what you’re going to say and how you plan to say it -- and even consider rehearsing with a trusted partner. Your attitude, the accuracy of what you say, and the care with which you say it may matter as much as the specifics.

2. Lean positive. Every time you offer feedback, some (if not most) of it should be positive. Look for opportunities to praise successes even as you offer suggestions for improvement. Celebrating performance has a salutary effect on everyone and is much more powerful than disciplining shortcomings. Dispensing encouragement is infectious.

3. Be specific. There’s no point in telling someone they need to be “more punctual” or “more diplomatic.” Give examples and specific suggestions for improvement. Replace “you need to be more punctual” with “let’s keep track of what time we start our weekly staff meetings in the coming month and then talk about how it went.”

4. Don’t limit it to a big annual event. Encourage regular and informal assessment. Don’t limit feedback to annual performance reviews where you bring people into a conference room. Instead, make a deal with your team to offer (and accept) real-time tweaks to enhance performance. Indeed, the best opportunities for this are when you “catch people in the moment” -- when you can point out a missed cue or a better way a situation could have been handled. Make talking about “how we’re doing” regular and easy.

5. Keep it cool. Don't use "high velocity" language. Labeling someone “lazy" or “inept" will invariably come back to bite you. And never shout, stand or be animated. People will recall how they felt, not what you said; so reduce the drama.

6. Don’t deluge. People can only process so many suggestions at once. If you have more than three items for someone to address, group them under a general heading, like goal-setting, cooperation, or communication and offer an example of each with a specific suggestion for improvement.

7. If it’s serious, say so. Occasionally, you may need to let someone know that unless they make specific changes, their job may be in jeopardy. If so, be direct. Let them know if something is getting in the way of their professional development, and that it could lead to dismissal if unaddressed. If this feedback is offered encouragingly – along with a plan to follow up – it can light fires that lead to improvement.

8. Follow up. By noting improvements on the spot, you'll reinforce that you're paying attention. Check in soon about the plan you made together, and as you notice efforts to improve, point them out.

9. Think of feedback as a gift. There are "no percentages" in giving a peer or organizational superior feedback about things to work on. In other words, there’s plenty of risk and no direct reward -- it’s safer to do nothing. So if a subordinate has the courage to offer you that kind of input, thank them and make a special effort to reward their risk-taking.

10. It stays confidential. Feedback sessions are private. Don't ever share the conversation with someone else. In giving feedback, you're seeking to help the person and the organization. Nothing good will come from sharing one person's issues with another.

The aim is to build a culture where people feel confident about sharing feedback without the fear that it will be taken personally. Honest, thoughtful feedback is an important and valuable tool for building a good team and a good business. With better feedback comes more trust, more team bonding, and more progress – that’s why it’s the breakfast of champions.

****http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131011052926-11846967-feedback-is-the-breakfast-of-champions-10-tips-for-doing-it-right?trk=mp-edit-rr-posts

The Top 10 Books For Professionals

Books make great gifts, but they’re even more meaningful with a story behind them.
 

This month, over 60 of the most powerful figures in business shared the one book that got them where they are, and described how reading it transformed them professionally and personally. “The Book That Changed Me,” November’s feature series of Influencer posts on LinkedIn, amounted to a library of life-altering books. Some were inspirational, some serious, and others downright silly. But they all had a profound impact on the lives of leaders, among them Virgin founder Richard Branson, executive recruiter James Citrin and GE CMO Beth Comstock.

LinkedIn’s members enthusiastically participated in the series, and added another shelf to that library. Your responses in the comments and on social media layered new meaning onto some Influencer favorites and offered a whole new selection of great books.

Now, we’ve developed a list of pivotal reads that the LinkedIn community recommends. To assemble it, we looked across the list of Influencer posts for the books that members talked about the most, and the books with which members were most engaged. Then we added in the books Influencers didn't mention but members rallied around. Below, you’ll find the top ten books that LinkedIn members and Influencers say changed their lives.

 

 

One book resonated particularly loudly with the LinkedIn network: Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Lincoln biography “Team of Rivals,” which Influencers Giovanni Colella, CEO of Castlight Health, and Phyllis Wise, Chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, both say made a profound difference in who they are as professionals. LinkedIn member Patricia Sullivan-Taylor agreed, responding:

Rather than attempt to ignore his weaknesses, he chose to place people around him that were a good complement to his skills. I've discovered this is both a good rule for business and marriage.

The ten most buzzed-about books for professionals

1. "Mandela's Way: Lessons on Life, Love, and Courage" by Richard Stengel

LinkedIn Member Pramod Kumar Srivastava on Stengel's book:

He saw the innate hidden aspirations in his people - to be equal.

2. “The 7 Habits of highly Effective People” Stephen R. Covey

LinkedIn member Inna Stelmukh:

Often common sense is hidden in the routine, and therefore when someone like Mr. Covey brings it to the surface again, it starts making even more sense.

3. “The Alchemist” Paolo Coelho

LinkedIn Member Charles Hurst:

The journey of Santiago and following his personal legend has changed the way I look at my life.

4. “How to Win Friends and Influence People” Dale Carnegie

LinkedIn Member Barney P. Popkin:

Understanding your customer in depth is a brilliant yet obvious and often overlooked concept.

5. “Atlas Shrugged” Ayn Rand

LinkedIn Member Donna Greiner:

[Rand] was a bit ahead of her time, but also very much a woman of her time. There is much to admire about her, and also much to disagree with.

6. “Les Miserables” Victor Hugo

LinkedIn Member Chris Burton:

It teaches us the importance of justice, redemption, words with actions, commitment and endurance, faithfulness and love. And it's a great story.

7. “As a Man Thinketh” James Allen

LinkedIn member Erika Powell-Burson:

It's a short, pithy read, advocating a change in thought process to change outcome...I sing its effectiveness whenever I can!

8. The Bible

LinkedIn member Sam Lee:

The proverbs are full of incredible wisdom regarding how to conduct yourself in your personal and business life.

9. “Think and Grow Rich” Napoleon Hill

LinkedIn member Talha (Terry) Husayn:

Nothing has changed me more ...I would be grinding away in medical school if it wasn’t for Napoleon Hill.

10. "Team of Rivals" Doris Kearns Goodwin

Lincoln member Ross Gibson:

Lincoln’s understanding of people, of the necessity to listen, to bring divergent opinions into the conversation and take decisive action … are all things we should learn. http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131203190537-28723569-the-top-10-books-for-professionals-plus-doris-kearns-goodwin-answers-your-questions-on-leadership?trk=eml-mktg-inf-m-booklist-1204-button

10 Simple and Easy Ways to Give Thanks for Your Employees

So on this day of giving thanks, take a few minutes to review this list and commit to using one of these methods to tell your employees “thank you.” I’ve used many of these strategies myself and can attest to their effectiveness.

In the spirit of today’s Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, I thought I’d share ten simple and easy ways to tell your employees “thank you.” Telling an employee “thank you” is one of the simplest and most powerful ways to build trust, yet it doesn’t happen near enough in the workplace.

Whenever I conduct trust workshops with clients and discuss the role that rewards and recognition play in building trust, I will ask participants to raise their hands if they feel like they receive too much praise or recognition on the job. No one has ever raised a hand.

 

1. Let them leave work early - This may not be feasible in all work environments, but if you’re able to do it, a surprise treat of allowing people to leave early does wonders for team morale and well-being. I use this technique occasionally with my team, usually when they’ve had the pedal to the metal for a long period of time, or if we have a holiday weekend coming up. Allowing folks to get a head start on the weekend or a few hours of unexpected free time shows you recognize and appreciate their hard work and that you understand there’s more to life than just work.

 

2. Leave a “thank you” voice mail message - Don’t tell my I.T. department, but I’ve got voice mails saved from over ten years ago that were sent to me by colleagues who took the time to leave me a special message of praise. The spoken word can have a tremendous impact on individuals, and receiving a heartfelt message from you could positively impact your employees in ways you can’t imagine.

 

3. Host a potluck lunch - You don’t have to take the team to a fancy restaurant or have a gourmet meal catered in the office (which is great if you can afford it!), you just need to put a little bit of your managerial skills to practice and organize a potluck lunch. Sharing a meal together allows people to bond and relax in a casual setting and it provides an excellent opportunity for you to say a few words of thanks to the team and let them know you appreciate them.

 

4. Give a small token of appreciation - Giving an employee a small memento provides a lasting symbol of your appreciation, and although it may cost you a few bucks, it’s well worth the investment. I’m talking about simple things like giving nice roller-ball ink pens with a note that says “You’ve got the write stuff,” or Life Savers candies with a little note saying “You’re a hole lot of fun,” or other cheesy, somewhat corny things like that (believe me, people love it!). I’ve done this with my team and I’ve had people tell me years later how much that meant to them at the time.

 

5. Have your boss recognize an employee - Get your boss to send an email, make a phone call, or best-case scenario, drop by in-person to tell one of your employees “thank you” for his/her work. Getting an attaboy from your boss’ boss is always a big treat. It shows your employee that you recognize his/her efforts and you’re making sure your boss knows about it too.

 

6. Hold an impromptu 10 minute stand up meeting - This could be no or low-cost depending on what you do, but I’ve called random 10 minute meetings in the afternoon and handed out popsicles or some other treat and taken the opportunity to tell team members “thank you” for their hard work. The surprise meeting, combined with a special treat, throws people out of their same ol’, same ol’ routine and keeps the boss/employee relationship fresh and energetic.

 

7. Reach out and touch someone - Yes, I’m plagiarizing the old Bell Telephone advertising jingle, but the concept is right on. Human touch holds incredible powers to communicate thankfulness and appreciation. In a team meeting one time, my manager took the time to physically walk around the table, pause behind each team member, place her hands on his/her shoulders, and say a few words about why she was thankful for that person. Nothing creepy or inappropriate, just pure love and respect. Unfortunately, most leaders shy away from appropriate physical contact in the workplace, fearful of harassment complaints or lawsuits. Whether it’s a handshake, high-five, or fist bump, find appropriate ways to communicate your thanks via personal touch.

 

8. Say “thank you” - This seems like a no-brainer given the topic, but you would be amazed at how many people tell me their boss doesn’t take the time to express thanks. Saying thank you is not only the polite and respectful thing to do, it signals to your people that they matter, they’re important, valuable, and most of all, you care.

 

9. Send a thank you note to an employee’s family - A friend of mine told me that he occasionally sends a thank you note to the spouse/significant other/family of an employee. He’ll say something to the effect of “Thank you for sharing your husband/wife/dad/mother with us and supporting the work he/she does. He/she a valuable contributor to our team and we appreciate him/her.” Wow…what a powerful way to communicate thankfulness!

 

10. Give a handwritten note of thanks - Some things never go out of style and handwritten thank you notes are one of them. Emails are fine, voice mails better (even made this list!), but taking the time to send a thoughtful, handwritten note says “thank you” like no other way. Sending handwritten letters or notes is a lost art in today’s electronic culture. When I want to communicate with a personal touch, I go old school with a handwritten note. It takes time, effort, and thought which is what makes it special. Your employees will hold on to those notes for a lifetime.

What other ways to say “thank you” would you add to this list? Please a share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

 

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the fourth Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust
http://leaderchat.org/2013/11/28/10-simple-and-easy-ways-to-give-thanks-for-your-employees/